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Friday, April 04, 2008

Ed Brayton on the FBI and MLK

It was forty years ago today, that Martin Luther King was assassinated. Much has been and more will be written about the impact of Dr. King's legacy.

And we should remember MLK's contributions to society, but we must should also reflect on the unconscionable behavior of our Federal Government during that time.

Ed Brayton reminds us if this dark period in our history, and why we should remember it.

After King delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech in Washington in August 1963, the FBI began to focus enormous institutional attention on him. One FBI memo from just after that speech declared King the "most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country," while another called for a meeting of department heads to "explore how best to carry on our investigation [of King] to produce the desired results without embarrassment to the Bureau." Left unsaid is any legitimate reason why the FBI should be investigating King at all, a man clearly being surveilled solely because he advocated ideas the government didn't like.

One month after that famous speech, [Attorney General, Robert] Kennedy approved a request from Hoover to allow the FBI to break into King's home and place recording devices. There doesn't appear to be any concern at all for the legality of the operation; Kennedy's only concern was for the "delicacy of this particular matter" and he wanted to make sure that the agents didn't get caught planting the bugs. The chief law enforcement officer in the nation, sworn to uphold the constitution, had given permission to the FBI to flagrantly break the law and violate the constitution by bugging the home of a man who had broken no laws whatsoever, a man who had done nothing but engage in perfectly legal protest against laws that are universally viewed with disgust today.

2 comments:

To the established ruling class, MLK was indeed the "most dangerous" man (of any race) in the country. We was opposed to the war, he wanted to lift up all of those living in poverty, and he sought equal rights. What is more threatening to the privileged ruling class than all of those things?

Recommended Reading

Veteran Ben LaGuer

Let me finally return to Dwight Macdonald and the responsibility of intellectuals. Macdonald quotes an interview with a death-camp paymaster who burst into tears when told that the Russians would hang him. "Why should they? What have I done?" he asked. Macdonald concludes: "Only those who are willing to resist authority themselves when it conflicts too intolerably with their personal moral code, only they have the right to condemn the death-camp paymaster." The question, "What have I done?" is one that we may well ask ourselves, as we read each day of fresh atrocities in Vietnam—as we create, or mouth, or tolerate the deceptions that will be used to justify the next defense of freedom.

– Chomsky, The Responsibility of Intellectuals 1967

Words to Remember:

"Juris praecepta sunt haec: honeste vivere; alterum non laedere; suum cuique tribuere"(These are the precepts of the law: To live honorably; to hurt nobody; to render to every one his due.)

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." -Section 1 of the 14th amendment to the US Constitution

Never Forgotten; Sadly Missed

Lawrence King

GLBT Legends

Paul McMahon and Ralph Hodgdon in 2007

"If you want to be important -- wonderful. If you want to be recognized -- wonderful. If you want to be great -- wonderful. But, recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness." -Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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